Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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out of which thou wast taken; thy body, that part of thee which was taken out of the ground, shall return to it again; for dust thou art." This points either to the first original of his body; it was made of the dust, nay it was made dust, and was still so; so that there needed no more than to recall the grant of immortality, and to withdraw the power which was put forth to support it, and then he would, of course, return to dust. Or to the present corruption and degeneracy of his mind: Dust thou art, that is, "Thy precious soul is now lost and buried in the dust of the body and the mire of the flesh; it was made spiritual and heavenly, but it has become carnal and earthly." His doom is therefore read: "To dust thou shalt return. Thy body shall be forsaken by thy soul, and become itself a lump of dust; and then it shall be lodged in the grave, the proper place for it, and mingle itself with the dust of the earth," our dust, Ps 104:29. Earth to earth, dust to dust. Observe here,
(1.) That man is a mean frail creature, little as dust, the small dust of the balance--light as dust, altogether lighter than vanity--weak as dust, and of no consistency. Our strength is not the strength of stones; he that made us considers it, and remembers that we are dust, Ps 103:14. Man is indeed the chief part of the dust of the world (Pr 8:26), but still he is dust.
(2.) That he is a mortal dying creature, and hastening to the grave. Dust may be raised, for a time, into a little cloud, and may seem considerable while it is held up by the wind that raised it; but, when the force of that is spent, it falls again, and returns to the earth out of which it was raised. Such a thing is man; a great man is but a great mass of dust, and must return to his earth.
(3.) That sin brought death into the world. If Adam had not sinned, he would not have died, Ro 5:12. God entrusted Adam with a spark of immortality, which he, by a patient continuance in well-doing, might have blown up into an everlasting flame; but he foolishly blew it out by willful sin: and now death is the wages of sin, and sin is the sting of death.